Home at last

We made it home on Saturday night without any issues. Leah slept most of the way home, and while she was awake, David sat in the back and entertained her so she never got upset enough to move around much. We picked up a few infant hats at Target on the way home, and the hats managed to create a "shield" around the distractor so it didn't get caught on the car seat at all. The hats also manage to hide the distractor pretty effectively, which is a big deal for my other kids. We talked to both of them a bit before we came home, and assured them that the distractor doesn't hurt Leah at all, but did prepare them a little for how strange it looks. Since we have arrived, Emma has seen Leah without a hat on, and while she said it wasn't as bad as she had expected, I did see her wince a few times when she was holding Leah. John, on the other hand, hasn't seen it, and has started checking with us to make sure Leah is wearing a hat before he enters any room. Since Leah doesn't seem to mind the hats at all (even the ones that are still a little bit too big that fall over her eyes periodically) we are keeping them on her as much as possible. Since the risk of infection at the site of the distractor is pretty great, the hats are also serving as an additional barrier, in addition to the Bacitracin and the hydrogen peroxide.

Since coming home, Leah continues to heal. She is starting to sleep well, and only wakes up one or two times per night. We are still giving her doses of Tylenol and oxycodone, but not as much as we were when we first left the hospital. Tonight, we gave her her first bath since the night before her surgery. It was only a quick bath, and since we can't get her distractor wet, we couldn't wash or wet her head at all. Instead, we are using baby shampoo and water on washcloths on her incision two times per day. I noticed today that two of her stitches have popped open, but since they are disolvable stitches, that should happen with some regularity. Her hair is just now starting to grow back in, and while it's definitely in the stubble stage, the popped stitches are about the same length and so they blend in pretty well.

Otherwise, we are starting to regain some normalcy. There is much more laundry to do since she is still bleeding on anything that her head touches, and since she spits out about half of the Tylenol we give her. We had to swap out all of her usual clothes with either pajamas that button up the front, or onesies that snap kimono-style but that require an undergraduate degree in engineering to figure out. She is very tolerant of all the dressing and undressing, though, and in fact her overall mood is quite good. It's remarkable to that exactly one week ago tonight she was just waking up from surgery and was in rough, rough shape.